zsh-users/zsh-syntax-highlighting

Jobs in command position

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#874 opened on May 27, 2022

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Buggood first issuesyntax:command-word

Description

The various percent syntaxes for referring to a job (https://zsh.sourceforge.io/Doc/Release/Jobs-_0026-Signals.html#Jobs) can be used in command position to foreground that job:

% cat & 
[1] 9896
% 
[1]  + suspended (tty input)  cat
% %cat
[1]  + continued  cat

In the example, %cat should be green, even if there's no alias/function/builtin of that name.

Cf. https://zsh.org/users/27806 (user ran into this in zsh upstream).

Contributor guide

Tech stack
shell
Domain
cli
Issue type
feature
DifficultyEstimated implementation difficulty for a new contributor, from 1 for very small changes to 5 for expert-level work.
3
Estimated timeA rough time range for an experienced contributor to investigate, implement, test, and prepare a pull request.
1-3 hours
Activity statusHow available the issue appears right now: fresh, active, stale, blocked, or waiting on maintainer input.
fresh
ClarityHow clearly the issue explains the expected change, acceptance criteria, and next step.
clear
Prerequisites
Understanding of zsh job control
Newbie friendlinessA 1-100 score estimating how approachable this issue is for first-time contributors.
70
Research direction
Investigate how the zsh syntax highlighting project handles syntax highlighting for different command types. In particular, examine the highlighting of job control syntax (e.g., %job) which should be treated as a builtin command. Look at the current implementation to see where command highlighting is applied and add a rule to color job references in green.